Survey: Newspaper Subscriptions Dropping Substantially

Among Rasmussen Reports' latest surveys comes more bad news for America's ailing newspaper industry -- that is, its newsprint versions: A sizable number of newspaper subscribers say they have dropped their subscriptions in the past five years.

The new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56 percent of American adults still prefer reading the printed version of the news to reading it online, but that's down from 69 percent five years ago.

One-in-three Americans (33 percent) prefer reading the online version of the news, up from 24 percent in May 2009. Eleven percent are undecided. See the survey question wording here.

The national survey of 1,000 adults nationwide was conducted Aug. 11-12 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percent, with a 95 percent level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion ResearchLLC. See methodology.